Blog
Welcome to our blog – The Bottom Line, where you’ll find up-to-date commentary and analysis on the most important news in the fiscal world. Below is a list of our blog posts.
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CEA Finds ARRA Continues to Spur Growth and Jobs
The President's Council of Economic Advisers released their third quarterly report yesterday on the economic impacts of the American Recovery and...
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Between the ‘Lines’: A Midweek Update
Up-Hill Battle for the Budget – Democratic leaders in Congress are floating the possibility that there will be no budget resolution this year, citing...
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Ben Bernanke and the Fiscal Outlook
In testimony before the Joint Economic Committee, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke once again affirmed his membership in our Announcement Effect...
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Public Pension Systems: Avoiding the Hard Choices?
At the Bottom Line we often complain about government officials avoiding hard fiscal choices because of the political difficulty involved. At the...
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Considering a Value Added Tax
With huge structural deficits looming in the future, many observers feel that the current tax code will not be able to raise enough revenue to balance...
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Can Only Taxing Income Over $250,000 Pay Off Our Debt?
President Obama has pledged not to raise taxes on individuals who earn under $200,000 a year or on couples earning under $250,000. It seems highly...
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Donald Marron to be new TPC Director
Today, the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institute, announced that Donald Marron will become the new...
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Let's Establish a Solidarity Fund
In order to help address its debt crisis, the country of Greece has set up a " solidarity account" to which people can donate money to help pay down...
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‘Line’ Items: Recess Over, Deadlines Loom
They’re Back – Congress returns from its spring recess this week. The Senate is back in session today and the first order of business is a cloture...
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Turning the Tax Cuts into a Hammer
What to do about those pesky expiring tax cuts? Generally speaking, Republicans want to extend them all; Dems want to extend most of them; and no one...
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Weekend Editorial Roundup
Here are the highlights from this weekend’s editorials on fiscal and budget policy: The Wall Street Journal noted the lessons that the United States...
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New Types of Taxes
In counting down to tax day, we’ve already shown that we don’t raise as much in revenue as we spend, and how this is partially the result of costly...